the shadows that run alongside our car
by daydise
Summary: Somehow, they always end up in the same situation. Time and time again, they would face each other, daring the other to finally do the deed, but this time it's different. It's just the two of them, and they're both going to die, whether they liked it or not / snowbarry


Inspired by the game: _The Shadows That Run Alongside Our Car._

* * *

Killer Frost settles on the rubble, legs criss-crossed. Her eyes gaze upon the horizon—the blood orange sunlight filters through crumbling buildings and stacked up cars. A warm breeze picks up a few dead leaves and she watches them drift off. She yearns to be like that. Free—

 _Dead_.

It's only a few seconds of calm before there's a gun pressed to her head. She finds herself leaning into gun's cool touch, and she waits. Time trickles by at a snail's pace, but she supposes that's just a symptom of death. Her eyes flutter shut and she even stretches out her legs, getting comfortable on her grave.

 _Finally_ , she thinks.

Electricity crackles and a breeze plays with the tattered ruins of her clothes. She rolls her eyes under her lids.

 _Always the hero._

She hears the gun drop onto the rubble and the dull thud of a body follows. His warm arm hook under her legs and he picks her up, whisking her away, further into the dying sunlight.

* * *

She opens her eyes and finds herself in the passenger seat of a car. He's next to her, his eyes burning through her, watching her curiously. She decides to ignore him and stares out the broken windscreen, surveying the bodies littered around them, the ground stained blood. She sighs before focusing on the burning sun, low in the sky.

"Why'd you do that?" she asks, voice devoid of emotion. She can't even find the willpower to be mad at him—she's so _tired_.

"What?" He's tired too. She guesses he's tired of losing—they've been losing since the start.

"Save me." Killer Frost turns to look at him. His eyes soften, but hers are as hard as ever. That's when she drinks in his appearance. It's the first time she's gotten a good look at him in months. His hair is longer, almost to the point where it's shaggy. There's stubble lining his jaw, new scars peppering his skin. She can see the hollows of his cheeks, and his eyebags are so dark that she worries he might collapse from exhaustion any second. She probably looks the same, minus the stubble.

Somehow, he shoots her a smile, his face half bathed in a soft, orange glow. It's the smile where it's stretched completely across his face and his gums are showing. It's the same one she would have seen on Barry before all of _this_ —before she was _Killer Frost_ , before his dad died, before _everything_. It's the one that made her stomach would do somersaults.

She can't understand why he's still smiling—why he is even still _himself_. But she guesses that that's just him. Barry has always been so sure of himself and everyone around him. The thought makes her tear her gaze from him and back to the horizon.

"Isn't that what we do?" His lips curve down a little, his smile slowly dying down, just like the world. His eyes flicker to his hands clasped in his lap briefly before looking at her. "We save each other." His voice is so soft and reminiscent, she can't help but think of the old days. Maybe that's why Killer Frost lets Caitlin have a little more control. Her eyes dull down from blinding white to a familiar brown and she turns to examine him, to see if he means what he said _, but Barry's always genuine_ —

Her lips betray her, quirking up in a small smile. She breaks eye contact almost immediately, because _of course_ it's Barry who could get her to smile when she hadn't in months. She looks out through the windscreen again, staring vacantly at the rubble, before looking back at him almost tenderly. "Yeah. Yeah we do."

The corner of his mouth lifts and he chuckles. He settles into his seat, the red leather of his suit squeaking against the car seat, and he breathes in deeply, eyes screwed shut. She turns back to face the windscreen, leaning her head against the headrest. If she closes her eyes too, she could almost pretend that everything is normal, and Barry's just driving her to the grocery store _or to her apartment._

Except—

"How did it come to this?" She can hear him shift in his seat. She keeps her eyes on anything but him, because she _knows_ if she looks at him, she'll just—

"I don't know—"

She laughs humourlessly, interrupting him. "Barry, I just want to _die_." He looks up at her, searching for something—she doesn't know what.

After a minute, he snorts, and it's so out of place that she frowns. She had thought that she couldn't be surprised anymore, but he proves her wrong. _He always does that_. He's grinning to himself now. "What?" she asks, colder than she means to, but he doesn't flinch.

Barry gazes at her, eyes soft. He looks like he's about to say something, but then there's a crease between his brows as his eyes glance at her lips. "You're biting your lip," he says accusingly, a disbelieving smile growing across his face.

Immediately, she drags her teeth off her lips. He reaches out and grabs her hand, rubbing circles on her palm. "Cait," he smiles tentatively and when she doesn't object to her name like usual, he smiles one of those smiles again and something inside her shifts.

He settles back into his seat again, looking more comfortable than ever. There's still that smile on his lips and she's completely confused. "How lucky am I? I get my best friend back when the world is ending." She stares at him, his smile vibrant and eyes sparkling in the orange hues of the sunlight. _He's glowing._

She pretends that her heart didn't stutter. She doesn't comment and instead, pulls her hand away. He glances at her through the corner of his eye and she can tell he's slightly hurt, but he quickly covers it up with another lazy smile. He seems to have an endless supply.

"I'm Killer Frost," her double tone becoming more pronounced. At her words, delicate frost forms on the broken windows and the temperature cools despite the sweltering heat. She looks pointedly out the windscreen.

"But you're also Caitlin Snow." She doesn't answer—she's too tired to. "Remember—" he laughs, and it sounds so much like home it _hurts_ , "—remember when Cisco—"

He abruptly stops. She stops too. The frost melts from the windows. Her heart is silent for seconds before it realises it needs to beat. _Cisco_. He's home too, but Caitlin Snow never have the chance to tell him that. She looks at Barry, and she can tell he's thinking the same thing.

"—bleached his hair to make you feel like you fit in?"

She notices the sad smile on his lips through her forming tears. Again, the mood turns somber but this time Caitlin talks.

"Remember when he bought you Lady Gaga tickets for your birthday?" Barry snorts, a small smile gracing his lips.

He's looking at her, but it's like he's seeing straight through her. "They were for her show in Gotham City, so he forced me to run us there," he says, but he sounds like he's far away, at two places at once. It strikes her immediately and she wonders if he's ever time travelled to stop all of this— _he probably has_. Does that mean that this was inevitable? She couldn't possibly fathom how much Barry could have been through, living through timelines that have all lead to the same outcome. Her thoughts trail back to wondering how Barry is still himself. She almost wants to reach out and hug him, but she stops. The thought sobers her.

"And you got a picture with her," she recites, shaking herself from thinking about the past, present, future— _whatever_.

"That I did. I'm pretty sure Cisco fangirled more than me."

"We both know that's a lie."

They laugh, her double edged tone jarring with his light laugh. She's painfully reminded that she's _Killer Frost_ and she stops. Barry notices the sudden change, and is quick to talk about something else.

"Summer lovin'?" he grins and she has to bite back her smile before punching him in the arm.

But she plays along, and says, "Had me a blast." Her voice trails off, nostalgic, and she turns to look out the passenger side window, which isn't much of a window at all. A breeze plays with her platinum curls.

"Remember that fight we had when you robbed that bank?"

"You'll have to be more specific," she snorts.

She can feel him roll his eyes at her. "Okay, about June, two years ago."

"Yeah, I remember. I whipped your ass." She turns to smirk at him. His eyebrow is raised in amusement, and he shakes his head slightly.

"The way I remembered it was that you stabbed me in the leg. Again."

She leans her head against the headrest, looking directly at him, smirking. He smiles a little, but there's something else mixed in there too.

"You didn't kill me." She freezes. He looks at her with something akin to confusion, but his expression slowly changes into sudden realisation. So does his tone. "Or that time when I stopped that heist and Captain Cold had his gun pointed at me. Or when—"

She cuts off his rambling. "Like you said, we save each other."

Barry smiles out the driver's window.

* * *

It's silent for a while. "What about you? You've had plenty of chances to kill me—lock me up— whatever," she says, throwing a hand in the air. She's back to staring out the window.

"I didn't really. You'd just stab me in the leg."

"Wuss."

"And besides, I'd already screwed things up for you. You weren't causing too much trouble around Central City, and I figured you didn't want to be locked up. We were keeping tabs on you, anyway, just in case."

She reads between the lines: _we didn't want to lock you up_. She doesn't know what to say to that, so she changes the subject. "What about Joe, Iris and Wally?"

Barry shifts again, clearing his throat. "Wally was on Earth-2 with Jesse when it started, so I assume that's where he is now. Joe—he tried to go after them himself. You know what he's like—"

"—An amazing father," she says with conviction. He turns to smile at her, and instinctively, she grabs his hand. Heat invades her senses and she almost feels normal, besides the fact that they're talking about their dead loved ones.

"And Iris," Barry heaves a sigh—too _tired_ to cry—and she rubs circles in his palm, letting him know it's _okay_. "She—she died right in front of me, and I couldn't save her."

Silence envelops the pair of them. She continues to rub circles and he just grips her hand tighter.

* * *

It's silent for so long, she almost misses it when he whispers, "Like I couldn't save _you_. I couldn't save _anyone._ "

The orange glow is fading fast and she can just see the tears in his eyes. She hushes him, trying to tell him it's alright. He can't save _everyone_. He can't carry the world on his shoulders.

But she can see the anger beginning to boil under his skin and he violently turns his head towards her. "It's my fault. _Everything's_ my fault. Cisco, Iris, Joe. You. Everyone. Everyone's dead because of me, and if you're not gonna—" he snarls, breathily heavily.

And finally, she understands. He needs someone to blame him. He needs to feel _justified_ in wanting to die and that's when she realises he has changed. Everyone's changed, she just wasn't there to realise it.

Her brows furrow and she crosses her arms across her chest. "I'm not going to blame you because it's not your fault."

"You should've killed me when you had the chance. Maybe none of this would've happened." He sounds to sure of himself that she feels sick because Barry's not meant to be like this. He's meant to be the happy hero, the person who would buy her coffee every morning. She's meant to be the villain, wanting to kill him. He's not— _can't_ —

 _What would the world be like without the Flash?_

 _Not one she would want to live in._

"If I had killed you, I'd be the last person alive. And then who would I have this heartfelt conversation with?"

He's staring at her and she desperately hopes he's read in between her lines (it's always been that way between them), but then the hardness is his eyes falters. A slow smile stretches across his lips, and he reaches out, his fingers ghosting her chin.

* * *

They both hear it—the footsteps crunching towards the car. They aren't scared, but they grab each other's hand anyway.

They're tired, but they give each other the strength to smile—after all, they were finally going to sleep.


End file.
